


I'm Just Trying to Stay Blameless

by semele



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 08:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basic facts of her life shift at some point between lunch and dinner, but it's hardly the first time. She can adjust. Elena-centric, friendship fic. Spoilers for 4x07. Warnings in notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Just Trying to Stay Blameless

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _I'm not trying to be sainted, I don't need to be good, I'm just trying to stay blameless_ , prompted by lunatics-word>.
> 
> Warnings: This time, I am definitely not ignoring anything that happens in 4x07. There's no sex, but I am strongly focusing on the sire bond, so if the concept is triggering for you, you might want to skip this.

After the Salvatores come back from New Orleans, Stefan tells Elena all about what happened over the last few weeks.

It's hard at first, like an impossible riddle, but they start with simple things, and Elena is a quick learner (Damon liked the red dress, so she started liking it as well). Basic facts of her life shift at some point between lunch and dinner, but it's hardly the first time. She can adjust.

Elena learns all about her motivations, feelings and thoughts. After a few days of crying, shouting and slamming doors the thought of being wrong settles firmly in her mind, sweet and familiar. “I am wrong and I need to be fixed,” she says to herself before she bites into a bloodbag. It sounds silly, spoken so directly and without necessary placating, but many a time weirder things turned out to be true, so Elena doesn't question it (Damon told her to drink from the vein, so she couldn't keep anything else down). She has enough to question as she is.

“It's not about obedience, it's about loyalty,” explains Stefan in a calm voice. “You don't just follow Damon's direct orders. It goes deeper. You're driven by the desire to make him... happy.”

***

The three of them still live together, and the Boarding House starts feeling strangely like a tomb. Stefan is serious, concerned and hyperactive, keeping an eye on Elena all the time, and she's grateful, grateful, grateful. 

Grateful. 

It's difficult to keep track of Damon. He's constantly in-and-out, and even when he's home, it's so easy to miss it, because he hardly ever says a word. Damon is quiet like he's never been before.

Elena knows why, of course: he has to be quiet for her to be loud. But there are also other reasons why he's quiet, reasons that probably have much more to do with him than with her. She even asked him about it once or twice (out of habit, out of boredom, out of obligation – take your pick, everyone else does), but he waved her off, and she didn't insist.

It's not like she's been feeling particularly chatty herself.

***

Elena is building her world anew, starting from simple truths and simple tasks. She likes pancakes, green shoes and hanging out with friends. She doesn't like Bonnie's car, diet coke and wearing stockings.

Sometimes she actually believes she can sew herself up like a patchwork, thought after thought after thought. She examines every single one very carefully before she adds them to what she already has. Thoughts need to have bright colors and clean-cut edges, that's how she knows they're hers and hers alone.

“Are you sure?” asks Caroline every time Elena picks up something in a wrong shade. Sometimes she is, sometimes she isn't, so she rethinks everything again, and again, and again. It wasn't so hard to get into a habit of rethinking.

Sometimes after sunset Elena goes out for long walks around the woods. It's her little secret, the only thing she doesn't tell anyone about, but it's okay, she can do it. No one she knows likes to go for walks, so she is reasonably certain this thought is hers and hers only.

She chooses places that are sure to be deserted, old ruins or the cemetery. She doesn't trust herself around people, not on nights like this, so she goes where she can't hurt anybody (she isn't sure who taught her that, so she leaves it for further consideration). Usually it works like a charm. 

Except when it doesn't.

One night Elena hears strange noise the minute she gets past the graveyard gate. Part of her wants to check it out, another part to run away, but before she can figure out which part is which, she hears a familiar voice. Apparently Damon is drinking with Alaric's grave, and they seem to be halfway through the bottle.

Elena freezes, confused. Her first instinct is to come closer, but then she starts thinking if she really wants to come closer, or maybe she knows this is what Damon would like her to do, and her thoughts fall apart like a house of cards. She knows Damon can hear that she's right next to him, but he pretends he doesn't notice (Elena doesn't know why she needs him to notice).

He doesn't say “I didn't tell you to kill anyone,” so she doesn't, isn't allowed to say “I know you didn't.”

***

Damon looks tired when he opens his bedroom door, tired and tense, painfully aware that they have ears on them every single minute. Elena knows, she really does, she understands, she sees reasons. But she's too exhausted to care.

“Can I stay here?” she asks in a normal voice, not even trying to be quiet.

“Sure,” answers Damon and steps back to make way for her.

She wants to kiss him for not adding “If this is what you really want.”

This is probably bad for them, the way they avoid questions, doubts and conversations, but that's all they ever did, and _everyone_ wants her to act the way she would if she was human.

So she steps a little closer, wraps her arms around Damon and hides her face in the crook of his neck.

He doesn't hug her back quickly enough, but he does it eventually. Elena forces herself to turn off her mind and not think about why she enjoys his touch, because, damn it, no one ever touches her these days. Stefan keeps a proper distance and Caroline never was much of a cuddler, not even as a child, let alone now. She probably could hug Bonnie, she _will_ hug Bonnie, she decides, as soon as she works up the courage, but that's neither today nor tomorrow, so here it is.

“Hold on,” whispers Damon into her hair after a minute or two. When she nods, he steps away and quickly locks the door behind her, the sound of a key like a gunshot.

It's an illusion, of course, him locking them in (locking everyone out). Any vampire could break in or out with as little as a flick of a finger, but Elena doesn't say anything. This was for Stefan to hear, not for her.

“In the morning, you'd better have a good story about how I ravished you,” says Damon with a lot more sting than she'd like. It makes Elena wonder what kind of things he must've heard from his brother and from Caroline, but she stops herself in time, closes her eyes and shakes her head. This is none of her business, she isn't _supposed_ to be thinking about what Damon wants or feels.

Instead she turns to his bookshelves, picks up _Anne of Green Gables_ (she knows better than to ask why Damon has _Anne of Green Gables_ in his personal collection) and sits cross-legged on the bed.

Damon joins her soon enough, settles behind her with a book of his own. Elena leans into him before she can think that maybe she shouldn't, but he doesn't move away or even tense under her touch, so she stays. She takes a few deep breaths before she dives into the novel, assures herself that she isn't doing anything wrong. She still isn't absolutely certain that this is allowed – the bed, the books and the silence – but if she asks “Why do I do this?” one more time today, she might end up ripping into someone's jugular.

They spend most of the night sitting back-by-back and saying nothing.


End file.
